The young man accused of public disorder defended himself in Spain’s National Court saying it was a joke.
In the summer of 2022, Aditya V. was about to board a flight to the Spanish island of Menorca at London’s Gatwick Airport.
Just before boarding, the young British man decided to send photos of the check-in area to seven of his friends via the social network Snapchat. The pictures included a phrase he had written himself: “On my way to blow up the plane, I’m a member of the Taliban”.
British intelligence discovered the message when the plane was already over France and decided to alert Spain, as the flight was due to land on the Spanish island.
The Ministry of Defence sent a Eurofighter to escort the plane, believing the passenger to be a terrorist.
On Monday, the young man defended himself in Spain’s National Court, accused of public disorder and facing a lawsuit from the Spanish Ministry of Defence demanding that he pay the €94,782.47 it cost to send the Eurofighter.
“It was a joke”, he defended himself before the judge, explaining that he did it because his friends “always made fun of him because of his Pakistani features”.
According to El Español, the young man explained that he could see the Eurofighter from the window of the plane, but that he never thought it was there because of the message he sent, thinking it was a training exercise for the war in Ukraine.
With the help of an interpreter, the young man was able to tell his side of the story. He insisted that he never thought the prank would go so far, and that he had only shared the picture with his group of friends.
The problem was that one of his friends was connected to the airport’s public Wi-Fi, so the photo ended up with British intelligence.
"The prosecutor asked the young man: “Did you never think that you could cause fear?”
The Spanish Penal Code states that a person who “falsely simulates a situation of danger to the community” that requires assistance from the police or emergency services “shall be punished”.
After Monday’s testimonies, the trial was scheduled for sentencing.
I mean, I agree with him?
He didn’t create an environment of fear - he sent a picture to his friend. No one but intelligence services even knew what was happening, including the person who sent it. Putting a Warplane up to escort a plane was an over reaction and pointless - whats it going to do?
Well they’d shoot it down.
I’d laugh, but there are numerous examples here in the US of cops shooting people who were threatening to commit suicide
Shooting down a plane threatening to blow itself up doesn’t help anything.
Only thing it will change is if they decided to 9/11 themselves instead.
Would it be out of the environment?
The warfighter wouldn’t be able to save the plane, but it would be able to scuttle it with missiles if the idiot was actually trying to hijack and crash the plane like 9/11.
Hindsight is 20/20, but if thousands died because someone in intelligence brushed off a social media post as joke, there would be a ton of justifiably angry people.
The dude is an idiot either way, though, lol.
Idiot - absolutely.
94k euro idiot - no.
And who the hell downvoted you for raising a reasonable point?
No, the dude isn’t an idiot. We have an assumption to a right to privacy in the UK. That privacy was invaded and worse still he’s being laden with the charge for the invasion.
Either we need to accept that there is a cost to counter-terrorism operations including those of false positives, or we in essence let the terrorists win by allowing them to force us into a perpetual state of terror - i.e. where we live and act in a constant state of fear of the potential of a terror act.
Yes, you do have a right to privacy in your own home.
You don’t, however, have a right to privacy in public places, using public services (like wifi), or using a corporations program and applications that have legal responsibilities - bet if he was done sending kiddie porn over tik tok no one would be going on about it being a private conversation.
Person made a stupid mistake that was perfectly funny in their own friends group, and the environment of over reaction took it from there - because we would all be screaming at security forces if it was an actual threat that was ignored.
I don’t think anyone has a complaint with them scrambling the jet. The complaint is taking the young man to court and laying the bill for the jet flight at the feet of a young man to pay for their overreaction.